New coastal company makes fuel from cooking oil

A new industry in Horry County this summer will begin making good use of gallons oil commonly used on the Grand Strand…and it’s not suntan oil.

Coastal Biodeisel Group will collect used cooking oil to produce biodeisel fuel. Company spokeperson Tasha Biering (BEER-ing) says they chose Conway to be their headquarters and home of a $4.5 million plant.

“We definitely saw a huge resource and up until now a wasted commodity,” says Biering. ” Often, up until the last three years ago, these restaurants were simply dumping or getting rid of their used cooking oil, there was no need for it. Now that the technology has been engineered to take this used oil and turn it into biodiesel, it’s definitely going to bring renewable fuel to Horry County and the state of South Carolina and help us become a little greener in the process.”

Coastal Biodiesel Group is now talking with restaurants in the Myrtle Beach area, says Biering, ” and we will be collecting their used cooking oil and then bringing it back to our Conway facility to refine it and come up with an ASPM grade biodiesel fuel that will then be sold in retail stores as well as on the wholesale level throughout the state.”

This fuel can be used in any diesel engine. She explains, “It is diesel fuel, but it is a biodiesel, so it’s not made out of the petroleum-based oil that we see now on the market, that our diesel and gasoline comes from. It’s actually being made from a renewable seed stock, which for us is used cooking oil.”

Coastal Biodiesel Group, Inc., is scheduled to be producing fuel by this June. Biofuel production is a part of what they do to help restaurants recycle used products from their kitchens.